Haunted Hotel vs Hazbin Hotel: which is worth your night? It isn't a tie

Netflix's Haunted Hotel dropped its second season on October 9, 2026, and debuted at No. 5 on Netflix's Top 10 with a 95% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, per Forbes. People have been comparing it to Prime Video's Hazbin Hotel since before it even premiered, when GamesRadar said the trailer gave off "some serious Hazbin Hotel and Scooby Doo vibes."

Two hotels, two streamers, one free night. We have a pick, and it isn't close.

The two hotels at a glance

• Haunted Hotel (Netflix): Created by Rick and Morty writer Matt Roller. A single mom, Katherine (Eliza Coupe), moves her kids into the Undervale Hotel in upstate New York, which her late brother Nathan (Will Forte) left her and still helps run as a ghost. Season 1 sits at 77% with critics on Rotten Tomatoes and 58 on Metacritic, per Wikipedia.
• Hazbin Hotel (Prime Video): Created by Vivienne "VivziePop" Medrano and made with A24 and Bento Box. Charlie Morningstar (Erika Henningsen), the princess of Hell, opens a hotel to rehabilitate sinners. It's a full musical, with 8 episodes a season. Season 1 scored 79% on Rotten Tomatoes and 69 on Metacritic, and season 2 scored 89% and 80, per Wikipedia.

The case for Haunted Hotel

Haunted Hotel is the easy hang. Episodes mostly run monster-of-the-week, the family bickers like a family, and Jimmi Simpson steals scenes as Abaddon, a demon trapped in the body of a boy from the 1700s. Den of Geek's Rendy Jones singled out Simpson and Forte as the highlights.

He wasn't sold on the rest, though, and gave season 1 a 2.5 out of 5.

"There's little to say about Haunted Hotel because it's just there."

— Rendy Jones, Den of Geek, on season 1

Season 2 opens with a Pinhead-style villain and a puzzle box, adds Natalie Morales as a new family member with a cosmic problem in her bloodline and brings in Frances Conroy for an ooze-possession episode. Joshua M. Hayes liked it but noted it "doesn't feel quite as fresh as the first stay." It's a show you can put on while you fold laundry, and that's both the pitch and the problem.

The case for Hazbin Hotel

Hazbin Hotel is the opposite of background noise. It started as a YouTube pilot in 2019 that has since passed 123 million views, and Prime Video's version became its biggest global debut for a new animated series in January 2024. When season 2 arrived on October 29, 2025, it hit No. 1 on Prime Video worldwide.

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It's loud, raunchy and stacked with voice talent, including Henningsen, Stephanie Beatriz and Keith David, and the songs are the reason people keep coming back. Tell-Tale TV called season 2 "a bombastic and electrifying encore."

It isn't flawless, and its creator says so herself. Medrano admitted in 2025 that season 1 had narrative and runtime problems, calling its episode limits "borderline-impossible" to work within, and critics have knocked the writing and the lore-heavy backstory. Season 2 fixed enough of it to score better across the board.

The verdict

Hazbin Hotel, and it isn't a tie. It beats Haunted Hotel with critics on both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, it's the only one of the two actually trying to be big, and you'll still be humming Vox's songs the next morning. Haunted Hotel is perfectly pleasant, but "perfectly pleasant" is not what you clear an evening for.

Haunted Hotel is the show you put on while you do something else. Hazbin Hotel is the something else.

The one thing Haunted Hotel has going for it right now is timing. Its new season is out, while Hazbin Hotel season 3 still has no date, even with Prime Video having renewed the show through a fifth and final season. If you've already sung through Hell twice, the Undervale will keep you company until Charlie reopens.

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